It was his watch below, and at another time he would have promptly gone forward. His remaining on deck signified an insulting menace, an impudent threat to watch me, and to guard his own and the crew’s interests against me. But I was resolved not to seem to notice his behaviour, nor even to appear conscious of his presence. We were carrying a grand sailing wind out of the south, and under a main top-gallant sail and a boarded main tack, the barque was sweeping nobly over the powerful heave of the long Pacific swell, and through the tall surges which were breaking in foam far as the eye could reach, with deep blue lines between. At intervals, some great hill of waters sparkling to the flying sunshine would flash into foam to the buoyant rise of the glittering metalled forefoot of the speeding, milk-white fabric, and cloud her forecastle in a storm of snow. The wind sang in the rigging with a frosty note, but the shrewd air was dry, without any sting of ice, though there was no warmth whatever in the white splendour of the leaping sun. The men observing that Lush kept the deck, came out of the galley and forecastle, and with abrupt shifting motions gradually drew aft to the line of the quarter-deck rail, which they overhung, feigning to watch the ship we were overtaking, though nothing could be more obvious than their real motive in drawing aft in this fashion. Wetherly alone kept forward. He stood leaning in the galley door, smoking a short pipe in as careless and unconcerned a posture as you would look to see in a lounging fellow sailing up the river Thames. ‘The brutes are terribly in earnest,’ said I to Miss Temple, as we stood together under the lee of the weather quarter-boat for the shelter of it. ‘If ever I had had a doubt of the wisdom of my conduct in this business, the presence of that group yonder would extinguish it for good and all.’ ‘Forgive me,’ she exclaimed; ‘but were you well advised in not altering the course of this vessel?’ ‘The fellows must not know that I am afraid of them, or believe me to be without some resolution of character.’ ‘What would happen were you to attempt to hail that ship there?’ she asked, with her eyes enlarging to the fear that accompanied the question, and her lips quivering as they closed to a blast of wind sweeping in a long howl betwixt the rail and the keel of the boat. ‘I do not intend to hail her,’ I replied; ‘and we will not, therefore, distract our minds with conjectures. Let us rather wonder,’ I went on, forcing a light air of cheerfulness upon me, ‘what those whalemen will think of you when they catch a sight of your figure? Will they take you to be captain or chief mate?’